Four alleged neo-Nazis charged with conspiracy to damage US power grid
According to court documents, one group member wrote on a neo-Nazi forum that he hoped the group would be "a modern-day SS," referring to the infamous elite Nazi military force.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFA neo Nazi attends a rally in Budapest October 23, 2009. The words, the motto of the S.S., read "my honor is my loyalty"(photo credit: LASZIO BALOGH/REUTERS)
Four men who allegedly colluded through a neo-Nazi forum were charged last week on suspicion of devising a terrorist attack on the power grid in Idaho and the US Northwest, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said. On Friday, Paul James Kryscuk, 35, Liam Collins, 21, Jordan Duncan, 26, and Joseph Maurino, 22, were indicted in North Carolina. According to the DOJ document, Collins and Duncan are former Marines previously assigned to Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. The defendants are charged with conspiracy to damage the property of an energy facility in the US, the document stated.
If convicted, Collins, Duncan, Kryscuk and Maurino could each face up to 40 years in prison.
According to the charges, the defendants researched, discussed, and reviewed in depth a previous attack on the power grid by an unknown group that used assault rifles in an attempt to explode a power substation. Between 2017 and 2020, Kryscuk produced firearms while Collins stole military gear, including magazines for assault rifles, and had them delivered to the other defendants. During that time, Duncan collected information, some military owned, regarding firearms, explosives, and nerve agents.
The indictment also states that the group members discussed using homemade Thermite, a combination of metal powder and metal oxide which burns at over 2,200 degrees Celsius to destroy power transformers. In mid-2020, Collins allegedly asked the group to each buy 50 pounds (about 23 kgs) of Tannerite, a binary explosive containing aluminum powder and oxidizers, and can be used to make Thermite. Later that year, a handwritten list of approximately one dozen intersections and places in Idaho and nearby states was found in Kryscuk’s possession, including places with components of the power grid for the northwest US. If the plot had succeeded, the damage caused could have amounted to more than $100,000.
Court documents say that Collins and Kryscuk met each other on the now-defunct online neo-Nazi medium Iron March and used the forum to recruit the others. They also allege that Collins wrote on the forum that he hoped the group would be "a modern-day SS," referring to the infamous elite Nazi military force.Training was held at a desert location near Boise, Idaho, Newsweek reported. A propaganda video the group recorded during training shows participants dressed in masks associated with the neo-Nazi group AtomWaffen Division firing assault rifles before displaying the "Heil Hitler" sign under a Nazi symbol. The video ends with a message stating "come home white man."
